Organising invention through technical mentality: Simondon’s challenge to the ‘civilisation of productivity’

Abstract

According to Simondon, it is through the implementation of a ‘technical mentality’ that a technocratic system grounded on a communitarian ‘ethics of productivity’ can be transformed into a system of metastable functioning as a value. Simondon’s overall project is twofold, aiming both at a unified paradigm for the social sciences, and at a pedagogy of technics, inspired by the concept of the technical mentality. The goal of this article is to provide a conjoint and consistent analysis of Simondon’s paradigm by connecting the concepts of ‘organising amplification’ and ‘technical mentality’.